1883: U.S. and Canadian railways adopt five standardized time zones to replace the multiplicity of local times in communities across the continent. Everyone would soon be operating on “railroad time.” Noon on a well-made, properly paced sundial is whenever the sun is highest right there. The advent of mechanical timekeeping in the Middle Ages didn’t […]

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All posts tagged ‘Greenwich Mean Time’

1883: U.S. and Canadian railways adopt five standardized time zones to replace the multiplicity of local times in communities across the continent. Everyone would soon be operating on “railroad time.” Noon on a well-made, properly paced sundial is whenever the sun is highest right there. The advent of mechanical timekeeping in the Middle Ages didn’t […]

1884: Geographers and astronomers adopt Greenwich as the Prime Meridian, the international standard for zero degrees longitude. The late 19th century was an era of standardization. With the Second Industrial Revolution stimulating world trade, the Treaty of the Meter established the International System of weights and measures in 1875. With railroads linking together entire continents, […]

1675: Britain’s King Charles II issues a royal warrant establishing an observatory at Greenwich. The Royal Observatory, then on the eastern outskirts of London, will enjoy a long and storied history and become a Prime piece of real estate. Charles had a navy and a large merchant fleet. They needed better ways of navigating. Latitude […]